


coming home

by relationshipcrimes



Series: entomology [3]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: Before the canon events of the game, a vessel tries to go home to the Abyss.





	coming home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teanjel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teanjel/gifts).



There’s a promise at the center of the world. A home that the vessel has never been to, but the vessel knows, from the bottom of its soul, will embrace them into its fold. They limp on, exhausted, dragging their torn and overgrown cloak behind them. Darkness bleeds from their shell. Darkness blinks in and out of their vision.

A flit of red in the corner of their eye.

The vessel’s broken shell screams in protest from their open wounds as they lug themselves into the nearest shadow. Darkness unspooling from limbs, dripping to the grey floor of the Ancient Basin, rising in the air, drifting upwards, downwards; even the severed parts of them hear the promise at the center of the world. Mostly, they pray that the sound of their own blood hitting the floor won’t give them away.

“Hallownest is no place for the weak of heart,” comes the hunter’s voice.

The vessel, slowly, pushes the gaping holes in their shell closed, trying to keep the black spots inside. Pain shrieks in their head. The carapace creaks, but if they don’t remove their hand, it stays closed.

“And cowardice is no way to live,” she goes on. “Come out and finish our duel. At the very least, you can die bravely.”

The vessel bows their head. The hunter falls silent. The empty skitter of the Ancient Basin scratches without tone. When the vessel picks themselves up, they can barely force their broken limbs to move, can barely hold up their own weight and walk.

But they do. Their limbs hold. They walk.

They go slowly, and painfully, creaking and leaking, into the bland dusty corridors of the Ancient Basin.

But they still go.

“You’d be a fool to think you can hide from me,” says the hunter’s voice, but it’s distant now, as the vessel drags themselves away.

There’s a promise at the center of the world, just below their feet, under the Ancient Basin–they can feel it in the thrum of their being, a resonance, two poles tuned to the same silence. A siren song of unexisting. Where no hunter in red will hunt them with needle and thread, where they can rest, where they’ll be safe.

They just need to get there.

The tunnels open up into a clearing, dimly lit, enclosed. There’s a locked door at the far side, and the sound of howling wind in the distance. They pry at it with their hands, but either the door is too strong or their (shaking) hands are too weak.

They listen carefully.

The wind.

The scratching of the lowlife creatures.

The call at the center of the world.

The drip of their own wounds.

But nothing else.

For the first time since the hunter appeared, the vessel is alone.

If a vessel could breathe, they would exhale. The vessel settles to drag themselves to the center of this quiet room, where the world has finally gone still, and they can sit and rest in this quiet room. Perhaps tear a bit from their cloak, to hold their wounds together. They’ll do it in a second. They just need a moment to rest. They can still hear the call, but right now, this small room to hide in will have to do–

“I hope you know,” says the hunter, “that this brings me no pleasure.”

(They didn’t even hear her approach–)

The vessel’s hand darts for their nail along their back. The hunter’s needle slices through their hand and darkness splashes along the floor. Their nail stays in its sheath; the vessel isn’t even sure they  _have_  a working hand to hold it with anymore.

The hunter tips the vessel’s face upward with the tip of her needle. Their limbs are shaking so badly they’re not sure they  _can_  fall over; it feels like every joint has locked with fear.

“Your weakness is no fault of your own,” she says. “I know.”

_Please_ , they want to say, but they have no voice. They’d gladly be weak and cowardly if it means they get to  _go home_. They spread their bleeding hands out pleadingly.

The hunter studies their hands without feeling, and says: “Faultlessness does not come before duty. The rotten truth upon which this kingdom stands is not for the fateless likes of you.”

Her needle flashes in the dim light as it raises high above both their heads. The vessel flinches.

_Please_ , they want to say, but they have no voice. Please, they only want to go home. They’re  _so close_ , they can  _feel_  the endless sea where they belong, where neither of them will have to kill or be killed, where they could disappear into the safety only oblivion can bring. They’re so  _close_ , they can taste the promise in the scent of their own blood; it tastes like solitude, like belonging, like family, like one and all and everything and nothing, like home; they just want to go home; they just want to go home; they just want to go h–


End file.
